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Can essences at level 100 be improved? Are there any better ones already?

Hi all,

Was wondering, well, the title really. I was all psyched up for creating bespoke armour at level 100 and have crafted a full blue set, only to find that the essences to go in it are rubbish. For example, I have a level 95 guild set on at the moment with +272 might on each piece (plus lots of vitality, critical and physical mastery), but each blue might essence only gives 147(ish). There is no way I’ll get anywhere near the stat bonuses I have now with the essences that seem to be available, even factoring in the base stats on the gear, so I am thinking: what is the point of making the effort? I might as well use the armour I have and replace with quest drops as and when.

Anybody have any ideas about this? Is it that the essences weren’t updated when the armour stats changed? Or is there a way to get better essences that I don’t know about?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by TheArtilleryman; May 13 2019 at 02:05 AM.
Reason: Title change - no responses so rephrasing question.

lvl50-105 was made harder all across the board, along with all gear scaled up to keep the on level difficulty similar, to mitigate the massive stat jump when entering mordor (106 mathom hunter gear was superior to 105 raid gear before)

another big change at U23 was the nuking of base stats: 1 of Might, Agility and Will now gave only 2 mastery instead of 8, making Might, Agility and Will mostly irrelevant.

100 and 105 essences AND gear was 2-3 times stronger than before U23.

then came legendary servers. SSG didn't like how people lvl'd up or completed their instances so easily using the lvl50 (not originally there on lvl50 cap).

-> Lvl 100-105 essences have been broken ever since SSG decided that lvl50 essence gear is overpowered, and "slightly adjusted" the lvl 50-105 essences by almost nuking their stats in half.

lvl106 essences and gear are not affected however, so doing lvl105 content is still doable as long as you outlevel it. However, you also have to keep in mind that lvl105 instances are currently harder than 115 instances due to lvl105 scaling being completely broken when lvl60 instances were being fixed.

If you want to experience lvl100-105 content on level, wait for SSG to fix that part of the game. If you like a challenge, feel free to give it a go, but some mechanics are pretty ridiculous currently.

Further to the comment regarding scaling irregularities it should be noted that, other than Vitality, there is a general rule of thumb not to slot Primary Stat essences but rather to use the more specific ones that suit your purposes e.g. Phys Mastery, Tactical Mitigation etc. It should also be noted that the Block/Parry/Evade mechanic at present does not favour using essence slots to boost them as the required amounts are so high compared to what you get out of them.

lvl50-105 was made harder all across the board, along with all gear scaled up to keep the on level difficulty similar, to mitigate the massive stat jump when entering mordor (106 mathom hunter gear was superior to 105 raid gear before)

another big change at U23 was the nuking of base stats: 1 of Might, Agility and Will now gave only 2 mastery instead of 8, making Might, Agility and Will mostly irrelevant.

100 and 105 essences AND gear was 2-3 times stronger than before U23.

then came legendary servers. SSG didn't like how people lvl'd up or completed their instances so easily using the lvl50 (not originally there on lvl50 cap).

-> Lvl 100-105 essences have been broken ever since SSG decided that lvl50 essence gear is overpowered, and "slightly adjusted" the lvl 50-105 essences by almost nuking their stats in half.

This makes sense now! If the essence values were doubled, they would make sense compared to the stats on the equivalent non-essence gear, and then be worth having.

Maybe I’ll concentrate on crafting and levelling some of my other characters for a bit and see if anything gets tweaked. I want to get my weaponsmith to a point where he can craft the 1st age weapons anyhow, and I’ve not played my alts so much recently. I’m in no rush to level up to cap anyway as I’d rather explore all the content.

I was leveling an alt guardian through 100 to 120 starting just about beginning of U23. Used the 4 slot flower armor and tier 7/8 essences (example phy mastery was 4K+ mastery/crit 450) through to 118 as it was pretty much as good as the Mordor essences at 115 (5.2k mastery no crit). Woke up on one patch after legendary servers and the couple of essences he had left at 118 were reduced by about 60%. With the derating of main stats and bpe on U23 pretty much the only thing to equip is vit, mastery, crit, some finesse and switch out some mits depending on which mob in which instance. Glass cannon builds except for main tank/healer. I wouldn’t want to level one of my alts in 100+ territory and have 4 abandoned in early stages of Mordor. Just not worth it.